


Heaven nor Hell

by lady__sansa_stark



Category: The Thousandth Floor
Genre: Alternate Ending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 20:57:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8224606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady__sansa_stark/pseuds/lady__sansa_stark
Summary: Everyone has secrets. Just how far will you go to keep them?[An alternate ending for that fateful night.]





	

**Heaven nor Hell**

 

The night sky was gradually welcoming the sun, pinks and oranges flooding the edge of the horizon. Stars above were blanketed by the ever-moving clouds. And the wind was the only thing they could hear. The noises of the party below them – of the whole Tower, two and a half miles tall, stretching towards the heavens where they now stood – it all faded away.

 

They couldn’t do much of anything, the way Leda was ranting about knowing all of their secrets. The way her eyes were dilated, the way her arms constantly shook at her sides; the almost rabid, feral mouth painted bright red she snarled at them with. Leda was on her drugs again, but at a scale infinitely worse than any they had seen before. One or two xenperheidren before an exam was one thing; this was an entirely new Leda. If questioned, she probably couldn’t list off all of the drugs she had consumed in the past twenty-four hours. And not from a lack of remembering the long, complicated names of them. But because when she would have felt the thrum of one of them fading from her senses, when she felt her body shaking for _more more more_ , she willfully obliged.

 

Her arms, her hands, her legs – they were wobbling, almost incapable of keeping her standing one-thousand floors above the earth. The wind didn’t help either.

 

She snarled at Eris, “Don’t you _dare_ come any fucking _closer_ , you bitch!” Eris didn’t move, but she didn’t shy away either. Eris knew, despite everything that had happened these past two months – _good lord_ , how had all of it happened in such a short time? – somewhere, deep down in that shaking body pumped on god-knows-what, was her friend. Leda was in there, her old friend Leda. But under layers of that uncontrollable and insatiable  need to cause a scene.

 

A pity for Leda there wasn’t much of anyone around to see it.

 

“Please, calm down, Leda,” Eris asked, slowly lifting her hands up in an open, pleading gesture. Pleading for her friend to come back away from the Tower’s edge. To come down from this impossible height and her reckless high. “Let’s talk about this indoors.”

 

Leda laughed, throwing her head back and forth. “You fucking bitch, you can’t fucking fix it!” Leda’s throat had to have been raw. The storm clouds gathering whipped the wind in a mad fury, and they had to shout even louder just to be heard. “You fucking _whore_ , you fucking _bitch_!”

 

Avery stood by the trapdoor, confused, scared. She didn’t care about what Leda was saying. She did, honestly, confusion and curiosity begging for the details. But Avery was more afraid of losing her friend from this height than from whatever drama and secrets Leda kept in her head.

 

Leda edged up towards Eris, backing the other girl closer and closer to the edge. Just one push, and either girl – or both – would plummet to their deaths.

 

The short, downTower girl, Rylin, was frozen in place. She hardly knew any of these girls, any of their drama. She certainly had drama of her own, the least of which involved Cord and her feelings (and his). But this girl, Leda… Even in Rylin’s wildest nightmares, she could not imagine any ‘friend’ lashing out like this.

 

“Leda, please,” Avery whispered beside Rylin, tears lining her cheeks.

 

Leda went on. “All you fucking bitches, acting like friends, acting like you even care!” She was wild, hysterical. Her eyes scanned each and every one of them, Rylin included. Leda’s voice cracked with every other word, the wind whipping strands of her hair about her face. “But now you’re going to fucking pay. All of you!”

 

Leda edged closer to Eris, prepared to end it, to end _her_.

 

She hadn’t seen them – neither had Avery, Rylin, Eris, or even Leda.

 

They came out of nowhere, it seemed, hiding unseen amongst the commotion, the utter destruction of fragile years of friendships. But they had heard it all

 

Leda had been so unsteady – in her head and on her feet – that one shove was all she needed.

 

They couldn’t hear her screaming over the wild wind, lashing louder and faster at their skin. She fell, off the railing, and down down down through the endless expanse of sky before meeting her death. The only mercy was she died on her way down.

 

Watt stood there beside the railing, standing where she once did. He felt as dumbstruck as he was sure the girls looked.

 

Nadia had told him the outcomes of every possibility. What would have happened if one girl fell versus the other; the impact of each event on the rest of the friends, on him.

 

Leda was the wildest event of them all. She knew too much, did too much. She would have outed them all, regardless if anyone but her survived the rooftop.

 

He finally looked back at each of the girls in turn: Eris, two feet in front of him, eyes glued to where the wind had whipped Leda’s dress against her as she plummeted; Rylin, eyes vacantly staring in his direction, not sure if what just happened _did_ ; and Avery, beautiful, perfect Avery, sunk on her knees and sobbing hideously.

 

His own hands were shaking, legs wobbling.

 

 _He_ pushed Leda Cole to her death.

 

 _This was the best of all possible outcomes_ , Nadia assured him, but he hardly heard her. _Had Leda continued, the probability of one or more persons dying increased, including the revelation of their and your secrets._ Her calculations were always spot-on in everything she did. Even when Watt wanted her to shut up or be wrong, to be human – she wasn’t.

 

 _This event was the best of all possible outcomes_ , she repeated.

 

No one said a thing. The clouds continued to move above them, the sun began to slowly inch over the distant horizon. Only those clouds and the wind, and Avery’s quieting sobs, kept them company, thirteen-thousand feet in the air.

 

This had to have been the right choice.

 

Right?

**Author's Note:**

> A quick drabble I wrote up trying to contain all of my emotions from that ending. I just...didn't want Eris to die tbh, and then I started typing and this happened.


End file.
